Options for accessing and experiencing media programs such as television programs have increased substantially in recent years. For example, users of consumer electronic devices may access and experience television programs as the television programs are transmitted live in accordance with a television transmission schedule over the air, cable television services, satellite television services, and the Internet. Such options may be referred to as “live media content options.”
Users may also access and experience television programs at their convenience, independent of television transmission schedules. Such options may be referred to as “user-controlled media content options” and may include multiple subcategories of options.
One subcategory of user-controlled options may allow users to access and experience television programs in a time-shifted manner. For example, television programs may be recorded from live transmissions of the television programs, and the recordings of the television programs may be played back later in time than the live transmissions. This subcategory of user-controlled options may be referred to as “recorded media content options.”
Another subcategory of user-controlled options may allow users to access and experience television programs on-demand in ways that do not arise from scheduled live transmissions of television programs. For example, users may download and/or stream television programs on-demand over the Internet. This subcategory of user-controlled options may be referred to as “on-demand media content options.”
Conventional user interfaces that are configured for use by users to locate, access, and experience media programs such as television programs are typically as disparate and/or independent as are the different options for accessing and experiencing the media programs. In a typical example, one user interface is dedicated for use by users to locate, access, and experience live transmissions of television programs in accordance with a live transmission schedule, another user interface is dedicated for use by users to locate, access, and experience recorded television programs in a time-shifted manner, and yet another user interface is dedicated for use by users to locate, access, and experience on-demand television programs.
These user interfaces are conventionally separate one from another and/or have unique or otherwise different characteristics, such as different visual layouts, navigation tools, navigation flows, organizations, and/or theories of operation. Moreover, the user interfaces may operate independently and may require that users return to a high-level within a navigation flow in order to switch from one user interface to another. To illustrate, a user using a user interface to locate live transmissions of television programs may be required to entirely leave that user interface (and its characteristics) in order to access any information about recorded or on-demand television programs in an entirely separate user interface (that has its own characteristics).
Such an inconvenient user interface navigation flow may make it difficult for users to access all of the information about media content options available to them and/or to make optimal choices regarding media programs they access, experience, and/or capture. For example, a user using one user interface may be unaware of the availability of a television program that is accessible only through another user interface, which is reachable only through an inconvenient user interface navigation flow. In like manner, a user using one user interface may unwittingly choose to use finite resources to record a television program that is already or will be available to the user through another option (e.g., an option that does not require the finite resources to be used to record the television program) because information about the availability of the television program through the other option is restricted to a separate user interface reachable only through an inconvenient user interface navigation flow.